New Delhi: The top brass of the CPI(M) met
here Thursday finalise its strategy on bringing together
secular parties to target the government on the Nuclear
Liability Bill and budget and decide on the meeting of
extended Central Committee slated later this year.
The two-day Polit Bureau meeting, which is being held at
the AKG Bhavan, is being attended by party General Secretary
Prakash Karat, M K Pandhe, Brinda Karat, Manik Sarkar and
Pinarayi Vijayan, among others.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was
not present at the meeting due to the ongoing state assembly
session.
"Political situation will be reviewed and strategy will
be finalised. The meeting also will also decide on the venue
of the extended Central Committee meeting to be held in
August. We will also decide who all should be invited to it,"
Pandhe told reporters here.
The extended CC meeting is being convened to decide on
the political line since the CPI(M) has postponed the Party
Congress to 2012.
The meeting would review the progress made by the party
in its inner-party rectification campaign, especially in
states like West Bengal and Kerala.
Besides reviewing the prevailing political situation and
the upcoming assembly polls in Bihar later this year, the
Polit Bureau will also finalise its tactics to unite all
non-BJP parties to corner the Congress-led coalition both
inside and outside Parliament.
The party is planning to coordinate actively with the
opposition parties in Parliament to take on the UPA government
particularly on the rise in petro product prices and the
overall increase in prices of essential commodities during the
remaining part of the budget session.
The CPI(M) and other Left parties have expressed their
clear intent to oppose the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill,
saying that it was nothing but a huge hidden subsidy to the US
equipment suppliers and aimed at promoting private nuclear
power plants.
Despite their opposition to the women`s bill, the CPI(M)
has been making calculated efforts to forge unity with
socialist elements like those in the JD(U), Samajwadi Party
and RJD. Efforts in this direction are being made ahead of the
assembly elections in Bihar slated in November.
Two days ago, Karat had called for unification between
communists and socialists to forge a "Third Force" in the
national polity.
Referring to the erstwhile Congress Socialist Party in
the 1930s which had leaders like Ram Manohar Lohia, Jaiprakash
Narayan and veteran communist leader E M S Namboodiripad, he
said after initially sharing the same platform, socialists and
communists parted ways.
Maintaining that time was now ripe for them to unite, he
had said, "In today`s environment, it is important that a
viable political alternative is available".
PTI
